Joe Flaherty (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I agree with the spirit of what Deputy O'Callaghan is trying to get at here but the public would think the last people who should have an informed decision-making role as to how we define our constituencies and areas for election are politicians. Whether we want larger or smaller parties to get more votes, the point is we need more people to vote. I echo a lot of what Deputy Ó Snodaigh said. We need to go back to basics and start from the bottom up in terms of local electoral boundaries. There are some horrific examples across the country. We are burdening this new commission with an awful lot of work. It is a seismic piece of work. It feeds back into Deputy O'Callaghan's earlier recommendation on the extension of voting rights to new citizens and young people. The second largest town in the holy land that is Longford is Edgeworthstown. It has been unable to return a local councillor in the past two elections because the town has been split into two local electoral areas. It has been unable to return a local councillor, which is a source of discontent for the people of the area. It is a heavily industrialised town with a large eastern European community. There are many low-income families in the area, many of whom are not engaging in the electoral process because they cannot see a vision or pathway whereby they can elect somebody locally. The piece of work for the commission must move from the bottom up and must start with the local electoral areas and work upwards. There is more work to do.